Approach
In 2020, I stepped into running the annual Downtown Harrisonburg restaurant week, Taste of Downtown. This campaign’s star had fallen a bit in past years, with 2019 in particular seeing a lack of enthusiasm from both restaurants and visitors. Traditionally, Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance (HDR) had charged participating restaurants a fee to subsidize paid promotion. I decided to make participation free and lean more heavily on earned media, trade media, and other opportunities that would be free or very low-cost to the restaurants to encourage higher participation and satisfaction.
I also left the options for being a part of the event completely open-ended, rather than mandating prixe-fix menus or specific restaurant week specials as Taste of Downtown had required in the past. I hoped that this would result in some creative events and offerings that would help me secure earned media coverage.
Role
- Pitched event to downtown businesses and secured participants
- Produced, printed, and distributed posters and rack cards
- Created event landing page on HDR website
- Negotiated no-cost radio promotion in exchange for event sponsorship
- Coordinate on-air interview time and gift card giveaway opportunities for businesses
- Wrote and distributed press release
- Created Facebook event and promoted via organic and paid channels
- Strategized and executed on email and organic social campaigns
Results
- 26 business participants
- 3 media placements
- 1,800 Facebook event RSVPs
- 4,808 landing page views
But did it drive visitors to eat and drink downtown? The campaign launched on March 9th, 2020. Taste of Downtown quickly pivoted.